Systems for manufacturing packets of cigarettes normally feature horizontal supply lines for connecting packing machines to respective cellophaning machines. During operation of the system, variations in the respective speeds of each packing machine and the corresponding cellophaning machine occur fairly frequently, due, for example, to one of the machines jamming or being arrested for cleaning and/or adjustment. To compensate for such variations without one of the machines having to be slowed down to accommodate the temporary reduction in speed of the other, it is common practice to provide an intermediate store along the supply line between the two machines.
Known stores, such as the one described in GB-A-1559796, are substantially horizontal and, being run through by the supply line, are relatively bulky in comparison to the loading capacity, and are not normally very flexible, i.e. capable of receiving packets of cigarettes of different types.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,010 discloses a cigarette pack store utilizing a rotating pack accumulating drum having a plurality of cigarette pack accumulating columns equally spaced about its periphery. Each such column guides a pack support pedestal for movement either downwardly during pack accumulation, or upwardly during pack discharge. Packs of cigarettes may be removed from a production line and accumulated, they may be stored, or they may be stored, or they may be removed from the accumulating columns and returned to the production line.
The cigarette pack store disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,010 is an improvement in respect to the known stores, such as that described in GB-A1-1559796, but is relatively complicated, i.e. expensive, to produce.